Volunteers - Recruit, Train, Retain

Some scratchings around trying to think about volunteers has led me to these thoughts - feel free to amend, challenge and assist me with them as I know there's something in what I'm thinking but there are many trees in the wood which obscure the view.

One of the big problems with volunteers is getting them in the first place and once you have got them you need to help them become able to to the stuff and then do it on their own. Once you've reached this place it is all too easy for us to start thinking that we are in a 'job done' position but in fact that isn't the reality, for retention is the toughest (and in my experience perhaps less effort) area to be considered.

Formal training is generally seen by many as the middle element in the process:

We go to great lengths devising courses on a Parish, Deanery and even Diocesan level to meet the assumed needs of the role people are to be engaged in. We do Bishop's Certificate courses and follow this with lay ministerial courses and so on (and this isn't wrong) and I have ask myself - is this the right (by which I mean 'only') approach for the volunteering issue?

Now I know that having something consistent across the Diocese (as an example) is a good place to be as it means that we have a benchmark for the role and a consistent, unified, approach to it too. But the problem is that we find ourselves with shelves full of extremely good stuff which blesses and locks us in to rigid processes and procedures (where what we want is happy, consistent and retained people out there doing the stuff).

What I am finding is that what really happens is that having recruited someone we come alongside them and engage in an informal training which is more akin to discipleship or apprenticeship (after all both seek to make the focus of the relationship like the master). We show the volunteer how to do the thing and then work alongside themas they learn to make it happen for themselves and then, much like teaching a child to ride a bicycle, we take our hands off and watch them cycle away. This doesn't then mean that the 'master' leaves but that they remain (with plasters and hugs for the inevitable spills) and encourage until confidence is gained.

Once the volunteer is doing the job it doesn't take long before they start to think of ways of doing the role differently (i.e. 'better) and soon thoughts as to how they can be better and have less spills comes from them.

We now 'respond' to the questions and seek ways of helping them be better at the role and it here that we can either resolve all 'in house' or turn to a process of formal training. What it then means is that whilst the basics can be included in this response it can become, because the people are doing the stuff, essentially a master class. This means that the material on the shelves now needs to have two different course for the same roles - one for those who wish to do a formal course to equip them and another for those who are doing and want to do it better (which those who have taken the traditional three step approach can find themselves using at a later stage too!).

So in addition 'recruit - train - respond' we now have:

Stages 1, 2 and 3 are all 'in house' whilst the fourth stage of formal training may be enacted at deanery and Diocesan levels - bringing about an 'expert group' who then continue to meet once or twice a year to consider developments (where relevant) and best practice from amongst their number. Better still - they can be enlisted to perhaps write the material and so those who know are producing the materials for their own and bringing into the equation a degree of self-regulation and management.

Regardless of the steps and processes the key stages are getting the volunteers in and, more importantly in my book, keeping them. We will have to look at these some time soon - communion and ironing vestments for NMA Royal Signals Service beckons.

Pax